


Preparation Is Half the Battle

by SasuNarufan13



Series: Thoughtfulness [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Doesn't follow epilogue, Established slash, Fluff, Harry's POV, Implied mature content, M/M, Massage Therapist Harry, Referenced Mpreg, Sequel to The Thought Behind It, Set around two years after its prequel, Veela Draco
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:40:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24334504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SasuNarufan13/pseuds/SasuNarufan13
Summary: Apparently green isn't the only colour that suits him. Azure blue too, imagine that. Draco certainly does.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Series: Thoughtfulness [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1758238
Comments: 16
Kudos: 342





	Preparation Is Half the Battle

**Author's Note:**

> Author's note: All right, after two months I'm back with a oneshot! I haven't given up on this fandom; I'm just slow at finishing my stories :P
> 
> This is a short sequel to "The Thought Behind It"; you don't have to necessarily read that one first, but it might help to place some details in this story in the right context.
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling owns it.
> 
> I hope you'll like this! It's something random, but it's something.

**Preparation Is Half the Battle**

"Where's Malfoy?" Hermione asked, looking around somewhat bewildered.

Harry couldn't blame her for her confusion. After being together for almost two years and one year officially bonded to each other, his friends had become accustomed to seeing Draco nearby whenever they visited Harry. The Veela wasn't particularly fond of having Harry out of his sight if they weren't working and after a while both Hermione and Ron had given up, getting used to seeing the blond hover around their best friend.

Not seeing Draco now even though she had stopped by right after breakfast on a Sunday must be quite baffling to her now.

"He's doing something upstairs," he answered and shrugged.

Draco had remained tight-lipped about his plans today when Harry had inquired after them yesterday and he'd decided that as long as the Veela didn't attempt to summon Voldemort back to life, he really couldn't be bothered with finding out what he was doing at the moment. He'd tell him when he was ready, he figured.

Besides, the last time Draco had acted this mysterious, he'd just been remodelling one of the rooms into a personal study for Harry, so he was in no particular hurry to pester the Veela about his plans.

Hermione nodded and settled more comfortably in her chair, her hands clasped around her mug with coffee. "You planning on attending the Ministry ball?"

He gave her a deadpan look. "Really, Hermione? You need to ask me that?"

She grinned unrepentantly. "Well, a little birdie told me that you've been attending more balls lately, so I wondered if you've finally given in and are planning on putting the Ministry out of their misery."

He rolled his eyes, using his wand to direct the coffeepot to the table. "Not on my life. I've only attended four balls in the past two years and they were all organised by Narcissa. I could hardly snub my own mother-in-law, now could I?"

"I'm sure Malfoy would have protected you from her wrath," she said amusedly.

"Not the point," he snorted.

Never mind that he would never put Draco in a position where he had to choose between him or his parents, attending those balls hadn't been such a hardship. The food had been amazing courtesy of the Malfoy house elves and Narcissa had made sure that the more obnoxious people had steered clear from him, leaving him to talk with people who hadn't immediately gaped at the sight of his scar.

He had had some actual interesting conversations during those balls and he wouldn't mind attending another one if Narcissa asked him to. It had made her happy and it had been quite amusing to see the otherwise unruffled woman looking close to preening because Harry had agreed to her request. He might be a 'simple' massage therapist now, but his name still held sway in their world.

Him attending the Malfoys' balls – and being mated to one of them – had given the family the prestige back that they had lost right after the war had ended. It was hard to ignore a family when they could claim _the_ Harry Potter as one of their own after all. Normally he refused to make use of his name like that, because he wanted to earn things because he'd worked for it and not simply because of his fame, but he didn't mind in this case.

If him attending some balls gained his parents-in-law – and then mostly his mother-in-law – some footing back in their world and ensured that people would think twice before attacking them, then he had no problem throwing his name around.

Both he and Hermione startled when Draco suddenly swooped into the kitchen; a determined look on his face. He was holding two scraps of cloths in his hand: one a deep green colour and the other azure coloured with tiny specks of silver dotted across it.

The Veela held out the two scraps on each side of Harry's head to the man's bemusement and grey eyes studied him intently. Silence reigned as Draco considered whatever he was considering until he nodded satisfied and made the green cloth disappear with one snap of his fingers.

"We're going for the azure one. The green one does match your eyes, but we don't want it to become too gaudy," he stated decisively.

"We certainly wouldn't want that," Harry agreed gravely.

"Can't become too cliché now. While green is definitely your colour, you do manage to not look like a twat in others as well so we have to make use of that," Draco continued, narrowing his eyes at the blue cloth.

"As always you do know how to compliment me so well," Harry said dryly, sipping from his coffee. "No wonder I fell for your charms."

"You fell for my charms because you've got good taste," Draco sniffed. "And because you do possess a shred of intelligence. Obviously you knew I'm a good match."

"And so humble too," Harry remarked while Hermione looked on in wary amusement.

"But of course," Draco smirked and bent down quickly to steal a kiss.

"Can I know what you're working on?" the dark haired man questioned curiously, smiling when a cool hand cupped his cheek for a moment.

"Not yet, still working on it," Draco replied and disappeared just as quickly as he had entered the room; a low chirp as his departing gesture.

"I don't think I'll ever understand you two," Hermione sighed, but she was smiling, indicating she wasn't trying to instigate an argument.

They had had plenty of arguments about his choice in lovers in the beginning – Ron being the most vocal about it –, but their friendship had turned out to be stronger than their dislike for Draco. Or perhaps he should say that they wanted to see him happy more than they wanted Draco gone, which was good too.

"Funny, that's what I thought about you and Ron first too," he teased and laughed when she swatted his arm.

* * *

Draco behaved mysteriously for three more days after that. Harry still had no clue what exactly his mate was doing – and why he needed an apparent colour scheme to accomplish whatever his intentions were – only that it had something to do with the spare room at the end of the corridor on the second floor.

It was two doors down from their bedroom and in the nearly two years they had been living here, it had remained empty as neither one of them had had a clue what they could use it for. The existence of that empty room had led Harry to point out that clearly a house with three floors – not including the basement and the attic – was too much for the two of them.

Draco had merely huffed, said they would find a use for it somehow and then had pulled Harry into their bedroom to distract him from the empty room. Draco had become good at that, distracting him.

Now it seemed that Draco had finally found a use for the room, though Harry hadn't been allowed to even take a peek at it so far. The door remained closed even when Draco wasn't inside and a ward prevented Harry from entering it. The ward itself wasn't that heavy or complicated and if Harry wanted to, he could easily tear it down. He left it alone out of respect for his Veela, though. Clearly there was some reason why Draco preferred him to stay out of it for now and so he resisted the temptation, stamped down his curiosity and didn't attempt to sneak inside.

He did wonder whether Draco wasn't fucking with him just for the fun of it, though, keeping the room a secret when there was no need to, simply because he knew how much Harry liked uncovering secrets. The blond could be a git like that. Even mated to Harry wouldn't change his behaviour completely.

* * *

"Have a nice evening," he smiled, drying off his hands.

The selkie, Elsie Waterborough, smiled back, slipping into her jacket. Her whole form radiated relaxation when she left his practice as quietly as she had entered it. Elsie wasn't really a talker, he'd noticed early on, which suited him just fine. They listened to music instead while he massaged the tensed muscles in her arms and legs.

She'd fallen in love with a wizard and now divided her time in between the sea and the land. The constant shifting between her seal form and her human one put a lot of stress on her muscles, however, and she'd ended up searching him out to finally get some relief. Now she had a running appointment once every two weeks in order for her muscles to remain loose and flexible.

Arms wrapped around his waist as he put the files into the cabinet, right before pure white wings created a curtain around them and he smiled.

"Ever heard of knocking?" he inquired idly, closing the cabinet drawer.

"Your last client left," Draco replied, as if that was a sufficient enough answer.

Rolling his eyes, Harry turned around in the firm embrace and looked at the blond, raising an eyebrow. "And that means you can throw politeness out of the window?"

Draco wrinkled his nose. "One would almost think you're not happy to see your mate," he murmured; his hands trailing restlessly up and down across Harry's back.

"Oh, I am happy," Harry disagreed and pecked his lips. "Still doesn't get you off the hook for not knocking, though."

"If I say I've got a surprise prepared for you, will that let me get off the hook?" the blond man smirked; his grey eyes glistening.

"You're still supposed to knock," Harry pointed out amused. "But fine, what's the surprise?"

"It's waiting for you at home. But first," one hand dipped into his pocket to retrieve a black scarf, "you've got to put this on."

"Are you serious?" Harry asked bemused, but when the Veela simply waggled the scarf in front of his face, he just rolled his eyes again and sighed. "Fine, yes, okay, I'll wear it."

"So much suffering you have to undergo for me," Draco clucked his tongue and looped the scarf around Harry's eyes after taking off his glasses.

When he had tied the ends together, he gave the knot a light tug. "Not too tight around your head, right?"

"No, it's fine," Harry confirmed, a bit disturbed by how he couldn't see the difference between having his eyes open or closed. The scarf was definitely dark enough to block out any light. "Honestly, you're lucky I love you."

"Only you could be this difficult about getting a surprise," Draco said amused somewhere in front of him and hands descended on his shoulders, giving them a light squeeze before they slipped down and ended up resting right above the swell of his arse.

"Don't Splinch me," Harry warned right before the familiar tug behind his navel alerted him that Draco was Apparating them home.

The wards bent around them, creating an opening to let them pass through before snapping shut, forming an impregnatable wall once more.

He had no idea on which floor they had landed as most corridors had been lined with carpet, so their footsteps were muffled when Draco guided him to the room in which his surprise was. They halted and a hand touched the back of his blindfold.

"All right, you ready?"

"Given that I have no clue what to be ready for, I'd say I'm as ready as I can ever be," Harry replied dryly.

Draco snorted, but then the blindfold was removed and the door in front of him swung open, revealing …

Harry blinked and cautiously stepped inside, looking around slowly. He was standing in the previously empty room; _previous_ , because now it was filled with a large bed drowning in pillows and blankets, the latter of which were all sorts of different shades of blue. The blankets and the pillows spilt over onto the floor, building some kind of soft mini mountain.

Powder blue carpet covered the rest of the wooden floor from view and there were long, dark blue curtains hung in front of the window.

As he stood there looking at the large bed with its seemingly infinite amount of pillows, cushions and blankets, he couldn't help but think that the bed oddly resembled a nest now; an azure blue blanket covering the centre of it.

"What do you think?" Draco asked, a bit impatient. His eyes were filled with nothing but anticipation, though, when Harry briefly looked at him.

"It's definitely an interesting arrangement," Harry answered carefully, stepping closer to the large bed to run his hand across a blanket draped over several pillows. The material felt incredibly soft underneath his touch, like a combination of silk and wool, and he touched it a couple of times more.

The blond man huffed quietly. "That's all you can say about this?"

"Well, to be frank, it looks like you created a nest," Harry said blankly and looked at his mate. "But I didn't want to say that in case it would offend you."

"Considering this is a nest, you don't offend me by saying that," Draco said dryly. "I'd honestly be worried about both my skills and your observation skills if you didn't notice this is a nest."

Surveying the mass of blankets and pillows – really, where had Draco found all this stuff? He hadn't seen anything being delivered and none of the other rooms were missing blankets or pillows – again, he asked, "And why did you build me a nest?"

Arms slipped around him from behind, laying low around his waist. "I was thinking that maybe we could start on giving the rest of the empty rooms a purpose," Draco murmured in his ear.

Giving them a purpose, hm? Not wanting to get ahead of himself, in case he was somehow completely misunderstanding this, Harry asked cautiously, "And when you say purpose – what do you mean by that?"

"Well, you've complained many times that this house is too big for just the two of us – but would you still think it's too big if there were more people living here?" Draco questioned innocently, his thumbs rubbing circles over Harry's hipbones through his jeans. "Like for example, a mini-you or a mini-me? Or even better: the perfect combination of us two?"

"You want to have a baby with me," Harry said bluntly; those works spoken aloud leaving a thrill behind.

"Hm, what do you think?"

"You want to have a baby with me and you want to make one in this nest," Harry said, feeling stupid for stating it like that, but his mind was having a hard time wrapping itself around the concept.

It wasn't as if they hadn't talked about having kids before; they had, not too long ago even. They had discussed the various methods they could use to go about having children – adoption, surrogacy, a fertility potion – and while they had agreed to have them soon, they hadn't set an actual date to start.

Apparently now was a good time to start according to the Veela currently nuzzling behind his left ear.

"Yes, unless you don't want to. I kind of operated on instincts here," Draco admitted chagrined and tightened his embrace when Harry went to turn around, certain he would catch the blond man with red cheeks.

As it was, the firm embrace kept him firmly grounded, but that didn't lessen his grin at all. "I can see that. You really made a luxurious nest here. Only the best for a Veela, huh?" he teased.

"Only the best for you," Draco corrected him swiftly and this time Harry was the one with red cheeks. "So what do you think? You want a baby with me?"

"I thought I'd been pretty clear about that when we discussed this a few months ago," Harry commented and clasped his hands around Draco's wrists. "My answer hasn't changed. I haven't taken the potion yet, though."

He felt the other man shrug. "Not something I can't whip up in a couple of days. I just didn't want to be too presumptuous."

"Not too presumptuous?" Harry repeated amused and nodded at the nest/bed. "I suppose creating an entire nest wasn't too presumptuous either."

"Oh shut up," Draco huffed and pinched his side. "I can't help it, all right? My Veela insisted on doing this."

"Well, who am I to snub your Veela?" Harry grinned and twisted around in Draco's hold, hooking his foot behind his legs to unbalance him.

They both fell right into the nest, Harry on his back and Draco sprawled between his spread legs. The blond man blinked, some of his hair sliding forwards, casting a light shadow across his face, as he supported his weight on his arms; his hands resting on either side of Harry's shoulders.

"I haven't made the potion yet," Draco reminded him; a glimmer in his silver-grey eyes. A smirk danced around the corners of his mouth. "Though I do appreciate your enthusiasm."

The dark haired man shrugged and pulled him down to kiss him. "Nobody said we can't try out your nest already, right? Get a feel of it before we start on the real thing," he said teasingly, sliding his legs upwards so he could swing them up and around Draco's waist, rolling their hips together.

"Sometimes you really do have some brilliant ideas," Draco smirked and swooped down to capture his mouth in a deeper kiss, filled with intent and lust as nimble fingers started unbuttoning his shirt.

This was definitely a good use for the room, Harry decided when Draco pushed inside of him; his back arched over the azure blue blanket as pleasure set his nerves alight.

A better use for this room didn't exist, he was sure.

* * *

They ended up using the nest a lot of times. It was only fair, after all, that Harry showed his appreciation for his Veela's building skills.

**The End**

**Author's Note:**

> AN2: Veela and creating nests for their mates - it's a thing, guys.
> 
> Please leave your thoughts behind in a review; should you spot any mistakes, please point them out to me!
> 
> I hope to see you all back in my future stories! Please stay safe and take care of yourselves!
> 
> Cuddles
> 
> Melissa


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